


A place even fear cannot reach

by CureIcy



Category: The Eye and its Children: What Lurks in the Dark, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguity, Anyways I think it needs a bit of balance~, Bittersweet Ending, Canon typical existential crisis, Cryptids, For a horror fandom TMA has surprisingly little horror, I mean seriously we joke that it's an office comedy but, Not at all canon compliant, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27218563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CureIcy/pseuds/CureIcy
Summary: Can you imagine it? It's all worthless, all that fear is nothing in the face of those so alien to us. We are nothing.
Kudos: 5
Collections: Tales of the Eyes





	A place even fear cannot reach

**[Jonathan Sims]**

Statement of the Archive, regarding a group of beings who exist beyond-- no,  _ above  _ the scope of the Eye. Statement begins.

[long sigh]

The first one of their number I met was a man who called himself Mortal, in America. Prior to our encounter, I had escaped Trevor Herbert and Julia Montauk, and was rather paranoid as a result, so you can imagine my reaction when I found Mortal on the side of a dirt country road.

I am well aware of the inherent stupidity of walking at night, but frankly it was the best option I had, seeing as the alternative was to sleep and leave myself vulnerable. I approached cautiously, trying to sense if he had any hostile intentions, but for all intents and purposes, he was….blank. Like he didn’t exist. Like the Beholding couldn’t see him at all, even though I myself could. I briefly entertained the notion that he could be an acolyte of the People’s Church of the Divine Host, but given the merry fire he was stoking below a cast iron pot, it didn’t seem likely. Perhaps the Lonely, or a lure of the Stranger similar to the anglerfish in my first full statement?

Finally, he seemed to have noticed, and gestured animatedly for me to join him. I approached hesitantly, and asked him his name. He told me he had a lot, but I could call him Mortal, and then handed me a still dripping spoon and asked me to stir the pot while he got a seat for me. I asked him if it was safe, and he told me yes, so long as I didn’t mind potatoes. So I did, and he left for perhaps half a minute to fetch a large rock and set it on the other side of the fire. He carried it with such ease I might have thought it was paper mache, and yet its weight was immovable when I tested it.

At this point, I flat out asked him if he planned to kill or harm me in any way, and he took the spoon back and said no, of course not. He simply wished to offer his hospitality, because I’d been through so much. I asked him how he knew that, and he merely raised an eyebrow and waited for the stupidity inherent in that question to become obvious. It quickly did, and I busied myself with settling down on the seat he’d provided. It wasn’t until later that I realized he hadn’t answered my question— my compulsion— at all.

We didn’t speak much, to be honest. At that point I was so grateful for someone a little less murdery that I sat and ate with him, and he offered to walk me to a motel. I’d like to say that there was something in the stew I ate, but in hindsight I think I can blame most of it on sleep deprivation, because I don’t recall checking in and I was told the next morning that my motel room was paid for— in gold, no less.

In the chaos of my rush to stop the Unknowing, I didn’t think too much about Mortal, didn’t have time to process any mystery that wasn’t life threatening, and so he faded from my mind.

During the six months I spent dreaming, there was a single dream that wasn’t born of statements I had taken. I saw a horizon on the sea, the mist gently rising from the waves. A— I really don’t know what to call the beings I saw. I suppose female presenting and vaguely humanoid would be the most apt; one descended from above and had too many wings covering her face, while the other rose from the sea and had an ever changing script running across her skin, like parchment. They met on the surface and clasped each other’s hands, like old friends, and then the winged one peered over the shoulder of their friend and saw me. That’s the only way I can describe it: she looked into my eyes and saw me, and her wings abruptly shut and she turned away. The one of parchment skin touched their shoulder and said it was all right, that I was a distant relation far from home, and then the fog became too great and I was lost once again in the nightmares.

There are others. A being of teeth and teacups, one of oozing mold and decay, a corvid harbinger of knowledge and death. Not something easily classified as any of Smirke’s Fourteen, but when I met them, I understood why they could not be classified at all, could not be contained.

Because when I entered the Panopticon and confronted Elias, for the first time in months I felt like I was being watched. And not by Eli— well, Jonah. No, he was being watched, too. And I felt it then, how people saw and feared me: a harbinger of doom, a dreamwalker with far too many eyes, but they were all like empty mirrors. I saw how all of them opened when I ripped statements from my victims, how horrified they were.

And then the tide passed, and the fear was gone, and in its place was a dull ringing that drowned out every other thought.

Martin tells me it took several minutes, that I was shaking and convulsing the entire time. He was having a time of it as well, but more of the headache sort, since he was never quite as touched as I am. Was. He said Jonah died after only a few seconds. I believe this experience was...well, similar to what I did to the thing that was not Sasha. I think…. I think it carved out all the bits of me that weren’t human. I survived, but there was really nothing left of Jonah. Nothing left to do but close his empty eyes one last time, and walk past his sad throne once I had regained the strength to do so. 

And where there had been nothing before, there was now a spiral staircase leading up, and so, with nothing more than a glance exchanged between us, Martin and I climbed up it. My head was slowly growing clearer, and I think about halfway through we sat down, and tried to breathe together, and held hands and leaned on each other. It was… nice. We don’t have much comfort left in the end of the world. And we talked about what we were going to do, how we— how we both wanted— to survive this and be happy again, like— 

Like we were, back when— 

[several minutes of shaky breathing that gradually grows worse; Jon seems to be on the verge of a panic attack, and attempts breathing exercises before lapsing back into erratic hyperventilation.]

[footsteps approach]

**[Martin Blackwood]**

Jon?

**[Jonathan Sims]**

Martin, I—

**[Martin Blackwood]**

Hey, just look at me, okay? Can I hug you?

**[Jonathan Sims]**

_ Please. _

[fabric rustles, muffled sobbing from Jon]

**[Martin Blackwood]**

Mkay. There you go. Want to take this to the couch? 

**[Jonathan Sims]**

Yeah. Yeah, and maybe— water?

**[Martin Blackwood]**

Of course. I already fetched you a glass; just— careful, okay? It’s all right. I’m right here. I’ve got you.

**[Jonathan Sims]**

Suppose I should— just turn this useless thing off, heh.

[click]

* * *

**[Jonathan Sims]**

I think….I think our encounter with them is best left for another day. If Cthulu walked this earth, we had tea with Yog Sothoth, and that is all I have to say on the matter.

[he clears his throat]

In any case. The aftermath… is safe. Safer than it was.

My vision— well. It’s not great; legally, I’d be considered blind, if laws and such still mattered. I wouldn’t say it’s been destroyed, but severely compromised. I have difficulty with certain colors, and can’t read most text. The beholding has left me, for the most part, but the, ah, backup information remains. I suppose removing an eldritch fear entity from one’s mind would leave such scars, and to be frank, it could have been much worse, given how deeply entrenched I was as a lynchpin in the Apocalypse. Heh. At least I already know Braille!

...Space is normal again, or at least, London’s standard of normal. It doesn’t operate so much on nightmare logic, and it’s slowly fixing itself.

Sam could find his way to the surface. The rains no longer come. But I wonder, will he remember how to walk, or will he shrivel up and hide away from the sunlight? Worms do not live above ground, and Sam can hardly remember when he was not a worm.

The Carousel of Strangers doesn’t spin; the faces slow their bearers in this race. And so are drawn to those who grew that skin, exchanges, trades becoming commonplace.

The sickness scrapes bone deep, bones crack and snap and the woman who was once the mayor burns, burns and burns until the maypole is gone and all that’s left is a tall child, not a woman but forced into that role by trauma. She is seventeen. She is only seventeen. She never meant for any of this to happen. She only wanted to be loved. And she is tired, so tired, and the maypole creaks and groans and falls as she drags herself away. She has scraped herself to the bone. She is nothing but bones until the real flesh grows back.

There is a new patient. Their name is Leo, and they are beloved and worthy of dignity, and they will not forget this. Their name is Leo and their pronouns are they and them and theirs, and no one can ever take that away from them because these words were forged in the heart of a star. And Leo wears a bronze pocketwatch that clicks and clicks and doesn’t stop, though Dr. David insists that it’s fake, Leo sings to the rhythm. It is a comforting thing, a constant thing, and Leo’s smile is a soft and beautiful gift.

There is a window that will not let anyone forget. There is a window, and through it the song of a long forgotten friend carries a message. This old chair is rather uncomfortable, and so many things are forgotten, but the window is constant. The window will not leave you. The window is open, if you want to leave.

The little village near the safehouse is rotting. But if you knock on the door of any given house, and politely offer a piece of fruit to the inhabitants, a hand will reach out and remember how to be human again, and how to peel an apple, and the teeth will remember how humans are supposed to smile. There are far too many teeth. There have always been far too many teeth, but we make our rounds nonetheless. Someday, they will come back, and knock on our door, and smile unprompted.

We don’t leave the village. We need time, time to recover from all that we’ve been through, and to know it’s not— it never was— our fault. We will do what we can, but there is a difference between kindness and fear, between a gift and an obligation.

And yet—

And yet there’s so much that I don’t understand, can’t accept. At least fear I could understand, but being kept alive by something even older? At their mercy? Every shred of power invalidated in the face of them... we’re nothing more than mice, and the entities are naughty kittens dragged away by their owners.

Statement….ends. The archives end. There’s no point anymore, not really. This world is uncaring and chaotic and unpredictable… so I think all I can really do is be in love, and hold onto that for as long as I can. 

[click]


End file.
